


Empty

by AgingPhangirl (Madophelia)



Series: One-Word Prompts [5]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, One-Word Prompt, Podfic & Podficced Works, Prompt Fic, TATINOF, Tumblr Prompt, dan being introspective as usual, phil being the worst motivational speaker ever, this probably should have been written a year ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 09:32:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11871495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madophelia/pseuds/AgingPhangirl
Summary: There isn't an echo in the empty theatre, nothing lingers to show they were even there. These are the things Dan thinks. Luckily Phil is there to put it all in perspective.[now with podfic]





	Empty

**Author's Note:**

> This was part of my celebration for reaching 800 followers on [Tumblr](http://agingphangirl.tumblr.com) where I ask people to send me one-word prompts.
> 
>  
> 
> [listen to this and other poetics here]

There wasn’t an echo. If he shouted loud enough, projected past the first row, there might have been, but his energy was sapped, he folded like a marionette with cut strings. His feet dangled over the edge, swinging over the orchestra pit. He wouldn’t fall, he wasn’t in any danger of falling, but he felt slightly unstable any way. 

The footsteps shuffling in behind him were familiar, and he didn’t need to turn to know who they belonged to. 

“Hi Phil.” 

He folded himself in next to Dan, his own long legs coming over the side of the stage, feet momentarily blocking the spotlight shining up at him. It was a nice contrast, a bit of the darkness. 

“Strange when it’s all cleared out, huh?” Phil observed, staring out at the empty seats, rows and rows of them, like taunting faces. 

“In all the time we’ve been here it’s been empty,” Dan corrected, “this morning, and this afternoon, during sound check and rehearsal. In fact, it’s been empty more than it’s been full save a few hours this evening--” 

“You know what I mean.” 

“I do.” Dan agreed, “I just mean... it’s funny how quickly you get used to it.” 

“It not being empty?” 

“Exactly.” 

Phil hummed next to him, leaning back so his palms were flat on the boards, wrists bent, taking the weight. “You get all cryptic and deep when you’re tired.” 

Dan shrugged. He was tired, yes, but there was also something about the old theatre, the knowledge of what had passed through this space before them, what would continue to pass after them, that was making him introspective. 

“This is the last one,” he murmured by way of explanation. He didn’t need to elaborate, trusting Phil to understand the jist of what he was saying without needing to find the energy for more words. 

“The last one of this tour,” Phil said, “But...” 

Dan sighed. He didn’t want to hear anything about Europe, or Australia, or any of the other places. That hadn’t been what he’d meant at all. 

“There will be more after this,” Phil continued, “after all of this.” 

“Will there?” 

Phil sat forward again, bringing his face level where Dan was hunched over, his gaze falling into the depths of the floor below, watching the light glint off the piano keys. 

“There will always be something more,” Phil nodded.

“What if there isn’t?” Dan asked, finally voicing the thing that’d been playing in his mind on a loop, “What if this is it? What if this is all we accomplish?” 

“Then it will have been a lot of fun.” 

Dan groaned, it made its way out and turned into a shotgun-sharp laugh on the way. There was a slight echo then, up near the chandelier. 

“How do you stay so upbeat?” 

He shrugged, in that careless, free way he had that drove Dan up the wall when he was trying to be morose. 

“I just figure that we’ve done some really great stuff over the years, and we got to do it together.” He grinned, his cheeks filling and eyes sparking like they always did, in that infectious way Dan tried to avoid but rarely could. “If that’s all I get, if this is really it then yeah... I’ll think it was fun. But Dan... this isn’t it.” 

“But how can you be so sure?” Dan wanted the firm promise of something, an idea, a grand plan to hang his hat on. He wanted to trust that they’d have more to wait for, more to wish for, more dreams to come true. 

“Right.” Phil swung round then, lifting his legs from that endless drop and crossing them in front of him ankle under knee, like a child waiting patiently. He wasn’t waiting, he was charging forward. “Say this is the last stage we set foot on.”

Dan opened his mouth to protest, but Phil held up a hand, cautionary, stalling. Dan was the one to wait then. He didn’t cross his legs, he left them where they were, swinging miles above the instruments. 

“Say it is,” Phil continued. “Say we never do anything else, our YouTube channels die, everyone loses interest and no one stops us in the street, no one asks for an autograph or a selfie and people forget we ever existed except in some distant memory when they’re digging our dusty book out of a box in a few years time.” 

“Is this supposed to be motivational?” Dan asks slyly, “Because you really suck at it if it is.” 

“If all of that happens,” Phil strode on, ignoring Dan’s petty interruptions and seeing them for what they were, the mere bolstering of someone scared that all of that was to pass. “I’ll still know you existed, and you’ll still know I existed. All this will still have happened, we’ll still have done it together. We’ll be in our flat, or a house, and it’ll be us, or us and a dog, or us and-- nevermind. We’ll be there. And the book won’t be dusty, it’ll be on the shelf with the pictures and the rest of the things we’ve made happen. Even if this is the last stage we ever stand on, it isn’t the last thing we’ll ever do together.” 

Dan’s mouth wanted to make words, he knew they were in there somewhere, he just couldn’t form them around the pressure in his throat, squeezing upward. His eyes stung. He shut them, just to be safe. 

“So yeah,” Phil finished, “It’ll have been fun.”

Dan blinked his eyes open then. He didn’t dare look over at Phil, not when he was trying to be gloomy and depressing, not when Phil was making it so difficult for him to stay that way. 

The empty seats blurred together. There was moisture on his face, and he batted it away. Leaning, without looking, into Phil’s waiting shoulder. They didn’t hug, because it felt too much like an apology, or commiseration. They leaned, it was brief. It was enough. 

The room was still empty, still a vast open space in all actuality but Dan felt it close in until it was just them. Just them and their little patch of stage. The small bit they’ve been granted in this huge great world. The bit they made their own. He’d take it, even if it was all they ever got. 

“It’ll have been the most fun I’ve ever had,” Dan said finally.


End file.
